Nature Vancouver

Ten of us hiked from Artist Point to Bagley Lakes. Artist Point is at 1600m elevation, and the trail drops 100m to pass Mazama, Hayes and Iceberg Lakes before climbing 200m to the high point at Herman's Saddle, a gap between Table Mountain and Mount Herman, then dropping 330m to Bagley Lakes at Austin Pass. The end of the trail is very close to the beginning, though straight up; you can take the Wild Goose Trail back to the trailhead, but we went the "easy" way and left one car at the bottom so we didn't have to hike back up.

Fall hiking doesn't get any better than this. The sun was warm but the heat and bugs were gone and so had the rains, at least for a week or so, giving us a chance to get one last great hike in. Clouds were sticking stubbornly to both Mounts Baker and Shuksan for the better part of the day, but both eventually cleared enough to see the summits.

Most of the flowers were done so we could only imagine the fields of pink monkeyflower that would have been out in August, but we did have a few brave hangers on, especially as we neared Bagley Lakes. But the fall colours, especially from the various species of huckleberry, were at their best (as so were the berries, which slowed our pace considerably).

Most of the birds were rather quiet; we heard the usual chickadees, juncos and kinglets, and our first lunch at Iceberg Lake was accompanied by some very keen Gray Jays. One small raptor, probably a Sharp-shinned Hawk, flew by behind Table Mountain, and we watched one Golden Eagle down the ridge while having second lunch at the saddle. But the highlight of the day was four, possibly five, American Dippers together near the end of the upper Bagley Lake. And several pikas and marmots were seen (and more heard), making hay while the sun shone.

Ice cream at Graham's, of course, capped off the day.